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Gig Review: Blitz Kids @ Cathouse, 5/10/2014

Blitz Kids are a band whose star is on the rise. The fact that the queue for the doors stretches halfway down Union Street a full hour before the gig is testament to that.

Inside, the band take to the stage following the best intermission music I’ve ever heard at a gig – highlights include ‘Single Ladies’ by Beyonce and ‘Love is an Open Door’ from Frozen – and deliver a slick, masterful display of wonderfully written pop punk. Opening with ‘Sometimes’ and single ‘Run For Cover’.

The band just ooze energy and charisma, whilst clearly enjoying what they’re doing. The set mainly focuses on new album ‘The Good Youth’ and the recently released ‘Never Die’ EP, with only two songs appearing from their earlier releases, one of which, ‘Maybe We’ll Die, Maybe We Won’t’ is peppered with sections of Weezer’s ‘Hash Pipe’, which always gets you in my good books. However, a My Chemical Romance cover does not – What? I don’t like MCR. Sue me. – but the band somehow make a good stab at covering the classic ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’ and, mercifully, cut it short. However, before the aforementioned cover, singer Joe James states that they “don’t usually do covers”, obviously not counting the aforementioned Weezer tribute and the impromptu cover of The Proclaimer’s ‘(I’m Gonna Be) 500 Miles’ which occurs in the sort of ‘encore’ – they didn’t leave the stage, because we’d “see through the illusion of us standing just over there” – but the crowd lap up every second of it.

The last two songs ‘All I Want Is Everything’ and the epic ‘Perfect’ close out the show and fine style, and the overall feeling is that this is the last time we’ll be seeing Blitz Kids in venues as small as this. Can’t imagine any band deserving it more, really.